Figure 2. A comparison of foraging success measured as mean daily gain in honey (means ± s.e.) under varying patch longevities and with various intervals between experimental switches of spatial information transfer (SI) and no spatial information transfer (NI) treatments (no switches, 2-day cycles, 3-day cycles, 12-day cycles).

The benefit of SI varies with patch longevity, with increasing benefits from one day (a), 7 days (b), 14 days (c), to 28 days (d). SI is more beneficial, if patches are relatively stable over time. Switching between SI and NI treatment hides the benefit of SI to a large degree (solid circle: SI, open circles: NI).